


Honey out of the rock

by middlemarch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, star wars: the rise of skywalker (2019)
Genre: F/M, Family, Female Friendship, Gen, Healing, Love, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Movie, The Force, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21973897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Home is where you welcome others. Family are the ones who stay. Love allows for questions.
Relationships: Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Honey out of the rock

Rose was the first to visit. Finn was frankly freaked out by Ben’s return and didn’t trust him and Rey couldn’t entirely blame him. Plus he and Janna had a quest to go on, one with less chance of mortal danger, and she wanted him to find his own answers. Maybe then he’d tell her his secret. He thought she already knew, because of the Force, but it didn’t work that way. She didn’t tell him that, because she knew that wouldn’t be a consolation. Poe was very busy trying to find something to do that wasn’t being a general, a spice-smuggler or the architect of a galaxy-wide constitution; Rey didn’t see how Tatooine could remotely resemble a vacation for him. Chewie had had enough of sand and had issued her a standing invitation to Kashyyk. And the droids wouldn’t come on their own, not even to see BB-8. But Rose came, for all that Rey might have thought she’d be the last.

Rey served blue-milk and local wafers, bread baking very slowly in the deep stone oven. Rose brought a cask of honey and a necklace General Organa had left for Rey. They sat at the low table and Rey saw how an embroidered curtain might look at the window, looped back to show the ridge, the few dappled shadows of the first tree on the round sill. Ben was out there, doing something needful, not fencing with the air. Sometimes, what was needful was sitting with his face turned to the suns, feeling the light, aware she was in the courtyard, re-engineering a vaporator. He’d tell her later.

“So, how was it being dead?” Rose said, once the pleasantries were past. They’d both been pretending to be General Organa even though she would have laughed at them. It was nice to have her be Rose again and to be Rey.

“Not so bad. It was restful. I suppose it might have gotten lonely after a while. For me,” Rey said.

“Were you sorry to come back?” Rose asked.

“No, not sorry. A little surprised,” Rey said. “I had thought dead was dead, but not always. Not that you can predict it or I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“What about Ben?” Rose asked. Rey admired the way she said the words evenly, no pause before his name, no wobble about calling him Kylo or even mentioning him at all. It was possibly the calmest way that question had ever been asked and Rey knew, Force knew, it had been asked by his mother and father, by his uncle. 

“He didn’t like coming back. But he wasn’t ready to be dead,” Rey said.

“That’s a thing? Being ready to be dead? It doesn’t seem like most beings are, but they don’t get coughed back up like a Wookiee hairball,” Rose said, a little bitterly.

“I think he’d agree with you,” Rey said.

“You’re glad though, glad he’s back,” Rose said. It wasn’t a question, not really. Was she glad her heart beat in her chest? That her soul animated her flesh? She knew Rose grieved for her own losses. There was so much mending to be done.

“I’m glad Ben is here. I’m glad he’s learning to plant a garden, to bake bread. It’s good to feel the Force going out like the tide,” Rey said thoughtfully.

“The tide comes in too,” Rose warned.

“Then we’ll learn how to swim. You’ll teach me, maybe,” Rey said, opening the honey. It was gold on the wafer, sweet in her mouth and spicy. She hadn’t asked what bees made it. Rose nodded, dipped her own wafer in the honey and ate.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation (of sorts) of my short fic "Be With Me," (a popular title to be sure).
> 
> The title is from Psalm 81:16


End file.
